Whether you're scheduled for a long road trip, shopping for a small army of friends and family members, wrapping dozens and dozens of gifts or camping out in the kitchen to get all your cooking complete, major holidays can easily put your body at risk of injury. Prolonged sitting, prolonged standing, extensive walking, awkward positions, overeating and plain old mental exhaustion are all common when the holiday season comes into full swing. Here are a few common sense tips to assist in keeping you healthy and pain-free this holiday season:

Traveling: bring water and small snacks to stay well hydrated and to keep your blood sugar levels stable, wear comfortable shoes and clothing, bring along a small blanket and travel pillow, bring all required travel documents as well as any maps or reservations for rental cars and hotels, be careful and obtain assistance when handling heavy/bulky luggage and gifts - use a push cart or dolly and obtain assistance whenever appropriate and/or possible

Shopping: bring water and small snacks to stay well hydrated and to keep your blood sugar stable, wear comfortable shoes and clothing, have your shopping day pre-planned in regards to locations to visit and gifts to purchase, use shopping carts when available and take gifts to your vehicle frequently rather than risking injury by lugging pounds of gifts from store to store, be careful and obtain assistance when handling heavy/bulky gifts

Cooking: maintain proper posture while at the counter/sink, alternate between sitting and standing positions, take frequent breaks, stretch often, careful when using knives and other sharp objects

Gift Wrapping: maintain proper posture, stretch frequently, be careful not to leave scissors or sharp cutting objects on the floor where they can be accidentally stepped on or where they can be accessed by small children or animals, be careful and obtain assistance when moving or wrapping larger or bulky gifts

Holiday Eats and Treats: do your best to avoid over indulgence of those holiday eats and treats, maintain activity levels to counter act all that holiday feasting, avoid driving when you've consumed those holiday spirits

Treat Your Body To A Holiday Gift: if you find those aches and pains creeping in or just want to be in tiptop shape this holiday season, stop by your chiropractor's office and treat your body to the most valuable gift of all... the gift of health!

A recent study found patients with identified spinal facet arthritis on a computed tomography (CT) scan - arthritis within the joints between the vertebrae of the spine - had no association to low back pain (LBP). In other words, those with visible arthritis of spine were no more likely to be suffering from back pain as compared with those who did not have visible arthritis of the spine. Arthritis is typically a product of wear and tear to a joint within the body. This wear and tear usually is a result of trauma, be it acute trauma such as a fall injury or chronic trauma such as long-term poor postural habits. What this ultimately means is that it's very possible and very common to have trauma to your body and in this case, to your spine, without the symptom of pain. Similar to dental checkups to check for cavities that may be lurking despite the lack of tooth pain, periodic chiropractic checkups are important to identify spinal and soft tissue problems that may be present, but that may not yet be associated with pain. If you haven't been to a licensed chiropractor for a recent checkup, pick up the phone and give us a call today.

Although we always invite our patients and the general public to our website and hope they spend hours reading through our health-related information, we do want to warn parents of the harm too much internet as well as TV usage has on their children. This comes from a recent report consisting of the analysis of 173 studies conducted since 1980 assessing how media sources impact the physical health of children and adolescents. In the report, researchers found three quarters of the assessed studies were associated with negative health outcomes. Findings included that increased media exposure was associated with an increased likelihood of obesity, smoking and early sexual activity as compared with those children who spent less time viewing/interacting with the media. The media included television, movies, music, video games as well as computer and internet usage. As with so many other things, moderation is key. And thus, we wish to remind our patients and website visitors to pay close attention to their children's media habits and their children's physical activity levels.

As you may know, chiropractors do not participate in the prescribing of prescription drugs/pharmaceuticals. However, we do want to ensure our patients and the public remains educated and aware of certain drug-related news we become aware of that could be detrimental to one's health. A new study published in the December issue of The Annals of Pharmacotherapy has warned that those who rely on the website Wikipedia for drug-related information could be putting themselves in harms way. Wikipedia is a user-edited online resource many use to access information about a myriad of things including prescription medications. In this study, researchers found Wikipedia lacks many important pieces of information pertaining to prescription drugs. These range from not mentioning important drug interactions that, for instance, could cause pregnant women to miscarriage, to not mentioning certain herbs that could have devastating interactions with certain prescription medications.